Another thread in my quest to ‘get’ Glee.
What is the deal with throwing slushees (a coloured ice drink) in the face of kids you don’t like?
And it’s accepted.
In Ireland, even in places where bullying is tolerated, that would have people going nuts - certainly a teacher that didn’t intervene would be frowned upon.
Is that actually normal in American high-schools?
No, not normal. A person would easily have been suspended at my school for such things, possibly expelled. I was shocked when I first saw that on Glee, and think the teachers lack of intervention is one of the most unrealistic parts of the show (and that’s saying something, on Glee).
Also, throwing kids in dumpsters: Not OK.
It’s a TV show…patterned after Broadway musicals. Everything is exaggerated. Have you noticed the students don’t ever attend real academic classes either. :rolleyes:
In Louis Theroux’s documentary “The Most Hated Family in America”, about the Westboro Baptist Church, in one scene, one of the preteen boys in the group gets walloped in the head by an icee drink thrown out of a car directed towards them.
Theroux expressed sympathy that the poor kids of that cult have to go out there and do that.
Are the teachers actually watching? Because I know schools where “telling” on that sort of thing would be considered tattling, and the punishment from your peers would be far worse than the punishment given to the other person. In fact, if the teacher wasn’t watching, you can almost guarantee you’d just get a slap on the wrist–at worst, a stern lecture.
I don’t watch Glee anymore, but if it’s being done to the choir, which was shown early on to be the lowest on the totem poll, I could definitely believe that people could get away with it. IF this school allows bullying, then I could definitely see that the response by the offending party would be a lot worse.
No the MOST unrealistic part of the show is the entire character of Sue Sylvester. I can’t imagine a teacher that would actually want to undermine a group of students at her own school. But of course without her there’s no conflict, and not much of a plot.
And Brad is always lurking somewhere nearby, ready to play the piano if you need him! 
Exactly…and who is Brad …a 35 year old student? …another teacher? …an involved parent? …community pedophile?
No. It’s not normal. I never saw anything like it happen when I was in high school. It’s a TV show.
As a teacher who has had a very wide variety of colleagues, good and bad, I have to tell you that your imagination is blissfully mistaken.
Notice the cheerleaders wear their cheerleading outfits every single day as well.
I love this show.
As somebody who was in choir (**NOT **show choir–we mocked show choirs, who, *Glee *aside, generally involve people in ugly sequined outfits making jazz hands to bad musical numbers) in high school, I can tell you that there are people you hire to come play the piano. They didn’t just hang around all day waiting for you to burst into song, though.
Maybe it’s just always game day.
I love this show, too.
I always thought Brad was just the escapist lifestyle of Jamie Hyneman when he wasn’t out busting myths.
just throwing in a movie anecdote; in The Weather Man, people regularly throw drinks, sundae etc at the protagonist. i can see it happening once or twice, but is there anyone in real life who’s made a regular target like this and in Glee?
I can’t speak for “at school” but I went to both a Junior High and High School in the Los Angles area. The High School was a few miles further down the same road such that all the kids who could drive would go right past the younger kids at the Junior High waiting for the bus in the afternoon. This being High School, you can guess the maturity level. I was a personal witness to the kids at the bus stop having fast food drinks, food, and all manner of trash thrown at them as some sort of a hazing ritual. I would bet serious money some kid took a slurpee to the head at some point, though I never specifically saw that.
At some schools, you wouldn’t even be allowed to have the drink (outside the lunch room anyway) let alone throw it in someone’s face.
I wouldn’t mind so much if we didn’t always have to see the look on her face.
If you want to get this show, the first thing you need to do is accept that nothing that happens is actually normal for an American high school. Glee is more a satire of high school and TV shows/movies about high school.
I don’t think Glee is a satire at all. I think any attempt to say that it’s a satire is an attempt to excuse how ridiculous it is.
Not only do kids on the show throw slushies on each other, but when Sue Sylvester gets pissed off, she goes down the hall shoving kids into lockers and knocking books out of their hands.
Other things that don’t happen in real high schools:
I’d go on, but I have to inform the state of Virginia that I will no longer be carrying photo ID. You know why? People should know me.*
*Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?